


fucking canada

by solarhyuck



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, Ice Skating, Love Confessions, Misunderstandings, Not Beta Read, college au kind of, i wrote this in one go okay, mentions of other Idols, reunion??, very dialogue heavy and dialogue driven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21785458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarhyuck/pseuds/solarhyuck
Summary: sooyoung hasn't seen yerim since she left for fucking canada.
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Kang Seulgi/Son Seungwan | Wendy, Kim Yerim | Yeri/Park Sooyoung | Joy
Comments: 6
Kudos: 69





	1. sooyoung

**Author's Note:**

  * For [5INGME](https://archiveofourown.org/users/5INGME/gifts).



> okay so first of all, i changed their ages and age gaps. they are between 19 and 22 years old.
> 
> second of all, as always, english is not my first language and this was not beta read.

Sooyoung was fifteen years old when Kim Yerim broke her heart.

Okay, maybe Sooyoung had been a bit dramatic, but fifteen year old her didn’t feel very dramatic as she felt as if the world was ending. And it was all because Yerim, her best friend of almost a decade, told her that she was leaving. Moving. To Canada.

Fucking Canada.

“Mom says that there are specialists there who can help Chaeun, so that she won’t be sick anymore. Dad applied for a transfer there, so we’re moving,” she had explained, and Sooyoung had been kind enough to pretend not to see how her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, “It’s called Brickville or something, the city, and it probably sucks.”

“When?” had been the only thing Sooyoung had been able to get out of her mouth, the unasked questions left under her tongue to sour.

Yerim’s tears had started to spill then, like a teacup overflowing.

“Two weeks,” she had choked out as she sniffled and tried to wipe away the wetness on her cheeks, but new tears stained them barely a second later.

Sooyoung swallowed down the words she had wanted to shout, the anger burning inside of her wanted to swallow her whole but she didn’t want to explode on Yerim, so instead she wiped away the younger’s tears and smiled sadly.

“Don’t be sad, Yerm. We’ll always be friends, distance won’t change anything.”

  
  


~~~

  
  


Distance had changed everything. Sooyoung never heard from any member of the Kim family after she had waved goodbye to them at the airport. The postcards Yerim had promised never came, the same with her calls and texts and fucking emails that had been promised.

But, it had been almost five years since the Kims left South Korea, so she had moved on. Mostly.

“I can’t believe you turned down the hottest girl I’ve ever seen – except for you, babe, don’t worry – because you’re hung up on someone you haven’t seen since you were fifteen,” Seulgi commented after witnessing the embarrassing moment that had been Sooyoung stuttering out a rejection when Wong Kahei had asked her out.

“Not worried, you call me goddess at least thrice a day,” Joohyun said noncommittally as she flipped pages in her textbook.

Sooyoung had never seen a college senior as put together as Bae Joohyun, and while it was very hot, she didn’t feel the need to voice that thought.

“I’m not hung up on her,” she protested instead, “I just. Don’t want to accept someone’s confession, I’m not in the right mindset to date right now.”

“Uh-huh, and this has nothing to do with the fact that when we were roommates, I heard you say the name ‘Yerm’ multiple times in your sleep?” Seulgi asked then, and Sooyoung scowled.

Joohyun, who had chosen to look up from her textbook patted her girlfriend’s hand,

“Seulgi, my love, Sooyoung doesn’t want to talk about whoever this Yerm person is. She makes the same face as someone suffer from constipation when you bring them up, and the only thing she has been willing to tell us about them was that they were friends for a very long time.”

Sooyoung couldn’t decide whether she wanted to kiss Joohyun for getting Seulgi to drop the topic, or if she wanted to kick her under the table for saying that she was looking constipated. She did neither, though, and instead just went back to eating the stale spaghetti from the cafeteria.

Seulgi wasn’t wrong, though. Sooyoung had been dreaming of Yerim for years, and maybe that had been why she couldn’t seem to let her go completely.

  
  


~~~

  
  


The first time Sooyoung saw Yerim in her dreams was about two months after the move, and the dream hadn’t made much sense to her.

The younger had been sitting in the middle of a meadow that looked suspiciously alike to the one from Twilight, which Sooyoung had binge watched with her sisters before going to sleep that day.

“Sooyoungie,” Yerim had chirped, and dream Sooyoung had replied to her with an equally chirpy ‘Yerm’.

“The flowers are starting to bloom,” Yerim said next, her smile twisting into something that had made Sooyoung’s stomach churn, “They haven’t wilted like the ones you wanted to give me.”

Sooyoung had woken up startled after dream Yerim had said that, and had almost automatically turned on the lamp on her bedside table to see the wilted gerberas still in the wastebasket by her desk. She had been given them as a thank you after helping out at her aunt’s flower shop after school for a few weeks, but had wanted to give them to Yerim because she knew how much she loved gerberas.

Sooyoung didn’t sleep more that night.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Sooyoung met Kang Seulgi two weeks after her first year at University of Seoul had begun, and it had been… an unusual first meeting.

“I’m so sorry,” Seulgi said for what felt like the fortieth time as she pressed balled up paper tissues to Sooyoung’s nostrils, “I’m a bit clumsy, and I didn’t know your face was so far up.”

“I’m only 167 centimeters tall,” Sooyoung muttered. She wasn’t angry, just a bit cranky, which she thought was fair considering the fact that she had gotten smacked so hard in her face that her nose had started bleeding profusely. When she had chosen dance as an elective, she hadn’t expected this.

“That’s still five centimeters taller than me! I’m tiny, and sensitive. Please don’t be mad at me, I’ll buy you boba!”

And that was the start of a semi-beautiful friendship.

  
  
  


“Wow, that actually sounds a lot like you,” Wendy, someone who Sooyoung had known existed for approximately sixteen minutes, told Seulgi as she wrapped up the story of how Sooyoung ended up being her and Joohyun’s closest friend.

Son Seungwan had told Sooyoung to call her Wendy, because she had been using her English name almost exclusively for ten years, and was what Sooyoung suspected the reason why Seulgi had told Sooyoung to be on her best behaviour and why Joohyun was wearing the only bra she owned that fit her properly.

Sooyoung squinted at them, suspicion growing when they both smiled at Wendy dopily.

“So, Wendy,” Sooyoung started, which made both of the lovesick fools snap out of it to look at her, “What are you majoring in?”

“Music production! It’s actually the reason I moved back here,” Wendy said and smiled brightly, “My mom’s friends works here and so I knew that the program was really good here, but I took a gap year to really think about it since it’s such a big change. But, my best friend was going to move here this year so it felt like a good decision. It wasn’t great to wait for her for a year while she finished high school, though.”

“Your friend is also from… sorry, I don’t know where you’re from.”

“Canada! Yeah, she moved there when we were in high school. I tutored her in English, since I was the only other student who knew Korean. She’s two years younger than me, but she’s the sweetest, and so funny,” Wendy told them, and Sooyoung nodded politely before going quiet again.

Canada. Fucking Canada. Sooyoung didn’t think that it was Yerim, because Canada couldn’t be that small, but it still sent her into her head.

“Oh, she sounds nice! What’s her name?” Joohyun asked kindly and tucked her hair behind her ear, something Sooyoung had seen her do when she would flirt to get discounts at coffee shops.

“Katy!”

Okay, so definitely not Yerim.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Sooyoung loved her major, she enjoyed physics a whole lot, but exam season Sooyoung was more dead than alive. And Seulgi and Joohyun asking her for love advice wasn’t helping.

“Listen, just because your exams are over and done with, it doesn’t mean that mine are. So unless you plan on helping me load my clothes into the washing machine while I study, I don’t have time to help you,” Sooyoung said in monotone, her eyes glued to her textbook.

“Seulgi, I’ll go down to the laundry room. You try to get good date ideas out of her,” Joohyun instructed, to which Seulgi nodded seriously.

“Shouldn’t you know the good date ideas? You’re the ones in a relationship, I’ve been single since I was seventeen if you don’t count drunk hookups at parties,” Sooyoung said and looked up from her textbook for the first time in what was really about two hours, but felt like two weeks, “You’ve been dating for two years, surely you know good date spots around here?”

“I mostly take Joohyun to this cafe she likes, she flirts and gets us discounts and free cookies, I don’t think that’s a great first date idea if we ask out Wendy,” Seulgi explained, and Sooyoung quietly nodded in agreement.

“Maybe you could take her ice skating? They opened up that free ice rink, and it seems romantic. You can go for something to eat afterwards,” Sooyoung suggested, and felt relief roll over her in waves when Seulgi’s whole face lit up.

“Park Sooyoung, you’re a genius!”

So all in all, exam season wasn’t horrible for Sooyoung that year. She got high scores on her exams, and Joohyun did three weeks worth of her laundry, all because Sooyoung gave away a date she had planned as a teen.

  
  


~~~

  
  


“Okay, so please remind me why you’re making me come ice skating with you guys? I know this was your first date with Wendy a while ago, but I’m really not into you guys like that. I mean, you’re both very attractive but–”

“Sooyoung, you’re coming with us because Wendy’s friend, Katy, is coming, too,” Joohyun explained calmly, “Wendy didn’t want her to feel like she was fourth wheeling, so we said we would invite you, too.”

“Ah, I see,” Sooyoung said and nodded, “I’m here so you can get into Wendy’s really nice jeans.”

Her jeans were really nice.

“We’ve already exchanged mind blowing orgasms with Wen–”

“Seulgi, no,” Joohyun stopped her girlfriend from speaking and shook her head violently, “We do not know if Wendy is comfortable with us talking about her sex life with Sooyoung, they don’t know each other that well yet.”

“I do not want to know more about your sex life,” Sooyoung said, her nose wrinkled in disgust, “Now please help me with my skates, it’s not working out for me.”

Joohyun squatted down to help Sooyoung while Seulgi skated around on the ice for a bit as they waited for Wendy and Katy to show up, as they had gotten a bit lost on their way there.

“Thank you, unnie,” Sooyoung mumbled when Joohyun stood back up straight, and the smile she gave her made Sooyoung think that yes. She understood why flustered teenagers would give her discount at coffee shops.

They skated for a bit, and Sooyoung got a good laugh when Seulgi fell on her butt, and after a while they heard Wendy call for them. Sooyoung saw that another girl was walking behind her, but she could only really see her light pink hair, so she decided to pull Seulgi back up while Joohyun skated to the edge of the rink to greet Wendy with a kiss on the cheek and introduce herself to Katy.

“I know I laughed, but are you okay?” Sooyoung asked quietly and patted Seulgi’s butt, which was cold from the ice but luckily just a little damp and not very wet.

“Yeah, it’s not the first time my butt has gotten smacked that hard,” Seulgi said and snorted when Sooyoung grimaced.

“Gross.”

Sooyoung and Seulgi skated over to where Wendy and Katy were lacing up their skates. Katy was facing down, so Sooyoung still couldn’t see her face, but she decided to be polite and introduce herself either way.

“Hi, you must be Katy. I’m Park Sooyoung,” she said and was just about to bow when Katy looked up and oh–

Sooyoung didn’t know Yerim had an English name.

“Yerm…” Came a weak whisper from Sooyoung, which made Seulgi and Joohyun nearly snap their necks to look at her.

“Wha–”

“Sooyoung, oh my God.” Yerim sounded shocked, and Wendy was looking at her with wide eyes when she heard the combination of name and tone come out of Yerim’s mouth.

Yerim stood up hastily, which almost made her fall forward as her skates weren’t laced up properly, and Sooyoung staggered backwards on the ice with wide eyes.

“I,” she started and shifted her gaze from Yerim to Joohyun, “I have to go.”

Sooyoung ignored when the four women called for her as she skated towards where her bag was with her shoes, and then walked on her skates as fast as she could towards the bus stop.

She hadn’t been ready to see the first and only person to ever break her heart.

  
  


~~~

  
  


“Sooyoung? Sweetie, are you all right?” Joohyun’s voice came from the door to Sooyoung’s dorm after a round of knocks. Sooyoung’s roommate had dropped out a while ago and no new roommate had been assigned, so she had been curled up in a ball on her bed for the better part of two days without the judgement of anyone.

Joohyun knocked again when Sooyoung didn’t answer.

“I brought ice cream, your favourite kind,” Joohyun tried to bribe, and yeah. Maybe it worked, because Sooyoung slowly unwrapped herself from the fluffy blanket she had gotten from Seulgi for her birthday last year and went to open the door.

“Hey,” she said, her voice rough from not speaking, and reached for the ice cream tub. She went back to her bed but left the door open so that Joohyun could come in.

“How have you been? You didn’t respond to our texts, and Minatozaki Sana said she was taking notes for you in your physics classes,” she spoke gently and sat down on the bed after taking her shoes off, “We’ve been worried about you, ‘Young.”

“M’fine,” Sooyoung muttered as she pried open the tub before reaching for one of the spoons she had on her bedside table. They were all clean, but Joohyun still wrinkled her nose at the placement of Sooyoung’s utensils.

“Are you sure? You kind of freaked out after you met Yerim,” Joohyun said, and was then quiet for nearly two minutes while Sooyoung just shrugged and shoveled ice cream into her mouth, “She told us about how you guys used to be friends.”

Sooyoung laughed humorlessly.

“Yeah. Friends. Because friends leave and never contact you ever again, friends leave and never look back. Friends break your heart, and it’s not fixed even five years later.”

Joohyun gently placed her hand on Sooyoung’s, and it was only then that she realized that she had been stabbing the ice cream with her spoon.

“I think you should talk to Yerim, because she told us a different story,” Joohyun said slowly, and Sooyoung noticed then that her eyebrows were pinched together as if she was confused, “She said you never answered her calls after she got a new phone.”

“What? I never got any fucking calls- wait,” Sooyoung paused when she remembered how she had gotten calls from a bunch of unknown numbers for nearly two weeks straight a few weeks after Yerim moved, and her mom had told her that it was probably just scammers calling. Sooyoung slowly covered her mouth with her hand as realization set in, and she suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, “I ruined it. I’m the reason, I’m the one who fucked up. Joohyun, I lost my best friend because I’m so fucking dumb–”

“Shut up right now, Park Sooyoung,” Joohyun said strictly, which effectively shut her up, “You are not dumb, you didn't fuck up. You made a mistake because you didn’t know, and I don’t think Yerim is going to hold it against you if you explain it to her.”

Joohyun reached into the pocket of her jacket to pull out her phone and typed something, and then Sooyoung felt her own buzz against her thigh.

“I texted you Yerim’s number, please contact her. I want you to be happy, Sooyoung, and if Yerim made you happy back then, then please let her make you happy again.”

So Sooyoung did.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Patching things up and learning how to be friends with Yerim again was easy, almost effortless, but it left Sooyoung with a weird feeling at the bottom of her stomach. Yerim had been so excited to be friends again after Sooyoung had explained and apologized, and it had made everything in Sooyoung’s life look a little brighter.

Before she knew it, Yerim had become a part of Sooyoung’s everyday routines. They would study together, because Yerim still remembered how to help Sooyoung focus since high school, and she tagged along with Sooyoung when she would volunteer at an animal shelter when she wasn’t swamped with schoolwork. Yerim would eat with her in the cafeteria, and would go to movie night at Joohyun’s apartment, and it felt right. It felt good to have Yerim in her life again.

Until they went to a party together and Sooyoung felt like throwing up after seeing Yerim making out with Kim Jiwoo.

There was nothing wrong with Kim Jiwoo, she was one of the nicest people Sooyoung had met on campus, but something about seeing them attached at the lips made Sooyoung feel… Icky.

So later that night, when she was completely sober and sitting in her dorm with a passed out Yerim on one bed because Wendy and Seulgi had gone back to Joohyun to presumably do something nasty, Sooyoung called up her sister.

“Hello?” came the groggy response after almost all of the signals had gone through, and Sooyoung sighed.

“Minji, do you think that I ever got over that big crush I had on Kim Yerim?” she asked, and felt almost scared of the answer so she had closed her eyes.

“Huh?” Minji uttered in confusion.

“When I was fifteen I really liked her, you know? I was going to ask her out but she was moving, so I didn’t. And I just, what if I never got over her?”

“Oh,” Minji said quietly, “Well. You never did.”

“What?” Sooyoung asked, almost bewildered. She hadn’t expected such a blunt answer.

“Sooyoung, you realized you liked Yerim when you were fifteen, but everyone around you two knew that you would have something special. Most of our relatives expected you guys to elope to America and get hitched once she turned eighteen, if she hadn’t moved,” Minji started, and Sooyoung laid down on the floor of the dorm where she was planning on sleeping and listened, “After she left, you were a wreck. You would lock yourself in your room on her birthday because you missed her so much, and when you were in a relationship with Hayoung, it just made me realize how much you really loved Yerim. Do you know why it didn’t work out with Hayoung?”

“Because she thought I didn’t love her,” Sooyoung said quietly.

“She knew your heart was all Yerim’s. We all knew.”

Oh.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Being in love with Yerim wasn’t very different from normal. Sooyoung started noticing how her heart started speeding up whenever she saw her, or how she thought Yerim’s annoying habits were cute and endearing when she found them annoying when other people had them, and yeah. Maybe it had always been that way.

Parties stressed her out, though. Yerim could do whatever she wanted with her body, but the fact that Sooyoung wanted those things to be done with her made her stressed when they were pregaming for parties. So after having gone through that stress roughly three times, Sooyoung took Yerim to a small diner the morning after a party on a nice morning in May.

“Get breakfast, it’s on me,” she had told Yerim, and the younger had been so hungover that she could barely order for herself.

They ate some greasy, disgusting food, and drank an unholy amount of coffee before they could hold a proper conversation with each other. Which Sooyoung ruined from the start, because she couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I have feelings for you, Yerm. I’ve had them since before you moved,” Sooyoung said quietly as she massaged her stomach, which she felt was bloated and very uncomfortable, “I know this is a gross and weird way to confess, because I feel quite gross right now, but. I love you.”

Yerim just scrunched up her nose cutely and reached forward to grab Sooyoung’s hands.

“Sooyoung, I can’t believe you’re telling me such happy news when I feel like dogshit under someone’s shoe, so please ask me out after we’ve napped together,” she said and laughed quietly, only to wince when she felt her head throb. “I know we just drank so much coffee, but I think we should go pee in separate stalls and then go to my place to nap.”

Sooyoung could do nothing but nod and wave to a waitress so that she could pay the bill.

  
  


~~~

  
  


**joohyun unnie**

wendy just came to my apartment looking traumatized   
i know you and yerim are dating, but please   
don’t have intercourse in her living room   
she has a roommate, you don’t  
just do it in your dorm

**sooyoung (child #1)**

tell wendy we’re sorry  
i’m not sorry! she accidentally sent me nudes once! – y

**joohyun unnie**

,,, i’ll let her know


	2. yerim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yerim spent years in canada missing sooyoung.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's some super minor yerim/wendy in this, barely mentioned at all as so don't worry.
> 
> yerim is between 14 and 18 while she lives in canada, and wendy is between 16 and 19 as she moved a year before yerim
> 
> i never clarified what kind of sickness it was that chaeun had in this, but it is mentioned that it has something to do with her heart and that she could have died so please mind this while you read.

Park Sooyoung was Yerim’s entire world when they were younger. It was always Sooyoung this and Sooyoung that, and it had been for about ten years when Yerim’s parents decided to sit their daughters down for a family meeting. Yoorim was the only one of Yerim’s sisters who was actually understanding everything, since Yeeun was just a child, and Chaeun was a tiny toddler. A very sick toddler.

“We found some specialists who can help Chaeun,” their mother started with, and while Yeeun had clapped and Yoorim made a happy noise, Yerim nodded slowly.

“That’s great, but there’s more to it, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t have to hold a whole family meeting,” she concluded and furrowed her eyebrows when her parents slowly took each other’s hands and smiled hesitantly.

“Well,” her father started, “We have to move to be able to get her the treatment.”

“Okay,” Yerim murmured, figuring that maybe they would move just an hour or two away. That would be hard, and horrible, but it would be okay in the end, “Where to?”

“Brockville, in Canada,” her mother said, and that was when Yerim felt as if it all came crashing down.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Sooyoung had gotten permission to come to the airport with Yerim’s family when they were supposed to leave. Yerim’s father had already gone to Canada with Chaeun, so it was just her, Yoorim, Yeeun, and their mom left. Still, Sooyoung and her mom came to the airport for one last goodbye.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Sooyoung had whispered into her ear as they were embracing, and Yerim felt bad for the way she was messing up her yellow sweater with her tears.

“I don’t want to go,” Yerim whispered back, and Sooyoung had held her tighter then.

“I wish you didn’t have to.”

Ultimately, Yerim did have to leave. Waving goodbye to Sooyoung only made her cry harder, and by the time that she was on the plane she had cried herself to exhaustion and fell asleep.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Yerim needed a new phone. Her old one had been stolen at the airport, so she had been stuck without one for weeks, and it had been awful. She hadn’t been able to contact Sooyoung, and any new potential friend that had asked her for her phone number had looked at her as if she was lying when she told them that she didn’t have a phone.

She finally got one after a while, when her had hadn’t been busy with work and her mom didn’t have a hospital appointment with Chaeun.

“It might not be the most trendy phone, but we paid extra so that you can call to Sooyoung. We figured you’d rather have a cheaper phone and still be able to call her,” her mother explained while Yerim unboxed the phone with a big grin on her face.

“Yes, thank you so much, mom,” she had responded with and hugged her mother tightly before going straight to the room she was sharing with Yoorim. She plugged in the charger in the outlet by her bed and sat down as she waited for the phone to start, and didn’t even bother putting in any numbers before she dialed Sooyoung’s and pressed the phone to her ear.

Sooyoung didn’t pick up. Yerim checked the time in South Korea and then called a couple of times more, figuring that maybe she had just missed it, but was even denied the last time around.

Luckily for Yerim, she didn’t have time to think about it or be too sad at the time, because her schoolwork was piling up rapidly. So she put her phone aside and figured that maybe Sooyoung was busy, maybe she had schoolwork or maybe she was hanging out with Hayoung or Yerin. Either way, Yerim told herself that she wasn’t being ignored and tried to make sense of her English homework.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Yerim was pretty sure she was being ignored. She had tried calling Sooyoung for what felt like the five hundredth time in the span of two weeks, and while Yerim loved to look on the bright side of things, she did feel as if she had her own personal rain cloud over her head. It didn’t help that she was in the school library, either, waiting for whoever her English teacher had gotten to tutor her.

Yerim was good at English, she was a great speaker and got praised for it all the time back in Korea, but once she had sat down and tried to write a test on grammar with complicated words with way too many possible ways to spell them, her new teacher had suggested a tutor. Yerim had tried not to be upset at the thought of having to be tutored a couple of times a week, but had accepted the offer.

“Hey,” a bright and cheery voice said in a voice that was just a smidge too loud for a library, “are you Katy Kim?”

Yerim looked up from her cellphone to be met by the blinding smile of Son Seungwan, or Wendy Shon, as she was going by in Canada. She looked way too happy to be in the school library at three thirty in the afternoon on a Thursday, so Yerim had tried to smile back as best as she could.

“Yeah,” she nodded, “Katy Kim. Yup, that’s me.”

The name still felt foreign to her, and she did miss being called Yerm affectionately by Sooyoung but–

She really needed to stop thinking about Sooyoung.

“I’m Wendy! I’m in grade ten, and mrs Novak told me that you’re in grade eight, so we don’t go to the same school yet but she knows my parents so she asked if I’d like to help,” she told Yerim as she took a seat next to her, “I’m also Korean, by the way. So if you don’t know a word in English, or the right way to form a specific sentence, I can still help you.”

Yerim nodded slowly as she chewed on the inside of her cheek while pushing her old worksheets towards Wendy, so that she could see what her struggle was.

“Okay, I see what your problem is,” Wendy hummed, “You’ll do great in no time, don’t worry.”

  
  


~~~

  
  


Wendy turned out to be not only a great tutor, but also a really good friend. She didn’t seem to mind that Yerim was two years younger than her, and she helped keeping Yerim’s mind off of Sooyoung.

For a while.

“Hey, Katy?” Wendy started when she came back to Yerim and Yoorim’s shared room after a bathroom break. “Who is Sooyoung?”

Yerim made a mixture of a confused and startled sound.

“Yeah, your little sister, the one with the pigtails, asked if I’m your new Sooyoung?” Wendy sat down on Yerim’s bed and wiggled her eyebrows, “Is Sooyoung someone super pretty? Because then yes, yes I am.”

“Um. Sooyoung is– was,” correcting herself left a bitter aftertaste in Yerim’s mouth, but she still continued, ”my best friend. Back in Korea. I can’t remember not knowing her, can’t even remember the first time I met her, so we go way back. She’s been around for all of Yeeun’s life, so she probably meant more if you have a similar part in my life as to the one Sooyoung used to have.”

There was a pregnant pause, and Yerim could tell that Wendy looked a bit worried that she had done something wrong, so she tried to ease the slight tension.

“She’s really pretty, so I guess you’re one of the top contenders for the next Sooyoung,” she said and stuck out her tongue when Wendy bursted into surprised laughter.

“Oh, I’ll make sure to get the job, then! I’m very competitive.”

Wendy would never be able to replace the Sooyoung sized place in Yerim’s heart, but she made it better. It hurt less when Wendy was around.

  
  


~~~

  
  


The day that Chaeun was declared healthy was one of the days that Yerim cried the most. She had been babysitting Yeeun and making sure that Yoorim studied while their parents were at the hospital with Chaeun, who was three years old at the time, and she had promptly burst into tears after their mother had called while sobbing herself.

She thought about the day that they had found out that Chaeun was sick, and how they weren’t sure if they could help her, or if she would even live to be a teenager. It had been barely six months after she had been born that they found out that there was something wrong with her heart, and that day had been another one of the days that Yerim had cried the most.

She had been with Sooyoung that day, they had been in her backyard with a freezie each – a grape one for Yerim, a sour apple one for Sooyoung – when her mom had come to pick her up. She had looked close to tears, which had been what made Yerim’s heart drop to the bottom of her stomach.

Sooyoung had been there when Yerim burst into tears and dropped her freezie on the grass, she had witnessed the way her whole family had been hurting. She had been there for it all.

It felt weird that she wasn’t there for the happy times.

Wendy was, though. She had been at the Kim residence when they had gotten the news, and had almost cried herself. She was the one that Yerim hugged, and it was. Weird.

Wendy had been a constant in Yerim’s life for nearly two years, and while she was so different from Sooyoung, Yerim’s heart still confused the two at times like these.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Chaeun being healthy didn’t change much other than the relief and lessened stress in the family, they still went on with their days. There were less hospital appointments, of course, but other than that it was all pretty much the same.

“Do you think we’ll move back now that Chaeun is okay?” Yoorim had whispered into the darkness of their room one night, “I mean, the whole reason that we moved is because they had specialists here, but she doesn’t need them anymore, so…”

Yerim was quiet for a bit while thinking about it. If it had been just a few months after they had moved, then she would have said yes. None of them had liked it back then, Yoorim and Yerim hadn’t adjusted well to school yet, Yeeun had been getting teased by a classmate at junior kindergarten, and neither of their parents had enjoyed the move much, either.

But it had been two years, they had all settled in okay. Yerim was doing really well in school, Yoorim had gotten so many friends, and Yeeun and Chaeun had regular playdates with the children of their parents’ new friends. They were doing well in Canada.

“No, I don’t think so,” Yerim responded after a while, her voice soft, “This is home now.”

Sometimes, though, it didn’t feel like home.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Yerim was one of those people who didn’t dream often, or rather never remembered her dreams, but there was one that stuck with her, that happened the night after her talk with Yoorim.

She had found herself on the beach she used to go to as a kid. The sand was warm between her toes, and her hand felt cold from the cherry freezie she was holding in her hand. Her parents didn’t buy freezies, they usually didn’t buy a lot of ice cream or popsicles at all, so Yerim knew right away that she was with Sooyoung.

“Yerm!”

Yerim whirled around when she heard her name being yelled from the waves of the ocean, and smiled when she saw that it was Sooyoung. She was in the water, jumping and waving at Yerim while smiling brightly.

It was Yerim’s favourite Sooyoung smile.

The freezie magically disappeared from Yerim’s hand as she ran towards the water, to Sooyoung. The water was cool against Yerim’s warm skin, and the embrace she ran straight into made her feel a different kind of warm than the sun did.

Sooyoung was laughing as she spun them around in the water, and before Yerim knew it they were kissing. It felt nice, and they were happy, that Yerim knew.

But when they pulled away, Sooyoung wasn’t Sooyoung anymore, and the scenery was different. Yerim still felt happy, though, as she looked into Wendy’s eyes.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Two weeks after the dream, Yerim asked Wendy if she could kiss her.

“Come again?”

“Can I kiss you?” Yerim asked again, a bit louder than the whisper it had been the first time, “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.”

Wendy turned off her keyboard and turned to Yerim fully, a blank look on her face.

“Your sexuality?” she asked, and continued when Yerim nodded carefully, “Okay. But you should know that kissing me might not help unless you actually like me. Okay, Katy?”

“Yeah, okay,” Yerim murmured.

The kiss was okay. It was nice, sure, but she didn’t feel like that’s what a kiss would have been like with Sooyoung.

“Did it help?” Wendy asked softly about an hour later when they were eating bowl of ice cream on the couch in her living room.

“Yeah,” Yerim answered around a spoonful of chocolate chip ice cream, “I think I like girls.”

She had been a bit worried as to what Wendy’s response to that would be, but the one she got made her laugh and feel at ease.

“Okay, same.”

“Not you though,” Yerim said and burst out laughing at the face Wendy made.

“Ooh, ouchie, my feelies,” she groaned and clutched her chest dramatically.

Yerim loved Wendy, but not in the way her dream had insinuated.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Yerim had known that the day would come when Wendy would leave for Korea, she had known for over a year, but she still cried like a baby in the airport.

“Hey, Katy, don’t be sad! You’ll come live with me in a year, you won’t just never see me again,” she had promised, and while it did made Yerim feel a bit better, she still cried.

“What if I don’t get into the school? I can’t just move to Korea without a plan, that’s insane!”

“You’re literally the smartest person I’ve ever met, don’t worry about it,” Wendy reassured her, and before they both knew it she had to go. Wendy said goodbye to her family and kissed Yerim on the cheek before leaving, and Yerim briefly wondered if that was what Sooyoung had felt like when she moved to Canada.

She hoped not.

  
  


~~~

  
  


The day Yerim’s acceptance email from University of Seoul came was another one of the days she cried the most.

Yerim hadn’t been sure when her heart had become set on the school in Korea, or when she had decided that she wanted to go back, but she had already been thinking about it for a while before Wendy had brought it up. She had done research, and the psychology program seemed exceptional, so she had her heart set on it.

So when Yerim opened the email, she had started crying as soon as she read that she had been accepted. Her parents who had been at the kitchen table eating eating breakfast had been startled by it, but had then proceeded to cheer when she had managed to explain why she was crying.

Yeeun hadn’t been happy.

Yeeun was only nine years old, so she knew that school was important, but she didn’t want Yerim to leave. She had been angry, and asked why they hadn’t been enough for her. Why she didn’t love them enough to stay.

Yerim had cuddled Yeeun in her bed that night, whispered assuring things to get her to believe that Yerim did love them, that she would visit during the breaks.

It had been a good day by the end of it.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Leaving Canada hadn’t been as hard as Yerim had expected it to be. Her family had seen her off at the airport, with Chaeun giving her a sticker on the cheek because she got stickers at her kindergarten when she had done something really great.

Landing in South Korea, however, had been a bit hard. She hadn’t been there in so long, so everything felt foreign as she pushed through the masses of people to try and get to where Wendy was waiting for her.

Yerim and Wendy had facetimed a lot during their year apart, but Yerim still felt as if Wendy looked a lot different when she saw her waving.

For one, her hair had been cut to her shoulders and the tips were tied a very light shade of blonde, and she had bangs. Those were definitely new changes, since her hair had still been long and all dark the last time they facetimed. She looked really great, though.

Secondly, Wendy had a suspicious glint in her eyes, which Yerim ignored for the time being so that she could hug her best friend.

“I’ve missed you so much! I can’t believe that you’re finally here, and that we’re going to live together! It’s going to be so great,” Wendy rambled on and grabbed one of Yerim’s suitcases before pulling her along to the taxi.

“I’ve missed you, too. And I’m so excited,” Yerim said earnestly, “I can’t wait to cry from stress because of schoolwork with you.”

“Same!”

  
  


~~~

  
  


It took Yerim approximately two weeks to hear about Kang Seulgi and Bae Joohyun. She had known that there was Something that Wendy was hiding from her, but she hadn’t expected it to be two girls who were already dating each other.

“It’s not homewrecking if I like them both and haven’t acted on it,” Wendy said as she scrolled through their Instagrams to show Yerim pictures of them, “Like, realistically I know that nothing will ever happen, but I like them so much, Katy. They make me really happy.”

Yerim hummed and looked at the pictures Wendy showed her.

“I think you should act on it, though. I mean, in the picture that Seulgi posted with both you and Joohyun it looked like both of them were sending you serious hearteyes,” Yerim mumbled. She was tired from having to do both her own and her partner’s part in a psychology project because he had decided to drop out the day before it was due. Because that’s what a decent human being does.

“Maybe, but not yet,” Wendy said quietly after a moment of consideration, “I’ve got to gauge how much they might like me.”

“Mhm,” Yerim curled up into a ball on the couch and yawned, “Wake me up around dinner time, please.”

  
  


~~~

  
  


**when-dy**

seulgi~~  
show this to joohyunnie too~~  
[1 picture attached]

**katyerim**

thanks  
i’ll go bleach my eyes now  
AND I WILL NOT SHOW JOOHYUN UNNIE THIS

**when-dy**

oh my god

  
  


~~~

  
  


It was safe to say that while Yerim was happy for Wendy for landing two great girlfriends, she didn’t feel like spending a whole day alone with them, so she had been relieved when Wendy told her that Joohyun and Seulgi’s friend would be tagging along.

She just hadn’t expected their friend to be Sooyoung, or for her to run away at the mere sight of Yerim.

“Wait, was that your Sooyoung?” Wendy asked carefully, while Seulgi spoke almost exactly at the same time, “You’re Yerm?”

Explaining everything to them was emotionally exhausting for Yerim, who had started crying in the middle of it, so after the whole story she had asked to go home.

  
  


~~~

  
  


**unknown number**

hey, yerm  
it’s sooyoung

**yerm**

oh my god am i dreaming  
or did you figure out what a phone is after five years.

**sooyoung???**

okay, i deserved that  
but, can i explain? please  
yerm… i screwed up

**yerm**

? explain

**sooyoung???**

okay well when you called it was a foreign number, so my mom told me it was probably scammers, i didn’t know that it was you  
i’m sorry

**yerm**

oh

**sooyoung???**

wait, why didn’t you text me that it was you? i would have answered then

**yerm**

uhhhh  
honestly it must have slipped my mind bc i have no idea  
but. i’m sorry too, i should have texted

**sooyoung???**

can we meet up? to talk?

**yerm**

i’m free tomorrow after psych, it should finish around two in the afternoon  
you free then?

**sooyoung???**

yeah! i’ll see you then

  
  


~~~

  
  


Being close to Sooyoung again after so many years of nothing felt weird, but so good. Yerim felt a sense of happiness and peace whenever she was with her, which was led her to a conclusion in April, a few months after the whole skate rink incident.

She had big gay feelings for Sooyoung.

Which had also been something Yerim figured out after a particular ‘funny’ dream. Which starred Sooyoung.

Yeah, she hadn’t been able to look Sooyoung in the eye for almost a week after that dream.

She also came to the conclusion that Sooyoung didn’t like her back, so when they went to parties she would make out with Kim Jiwoo quite frequently. She didn’t know Jiwoo super well, they just messed around a bit after having met in psychology class.

Sooyoung never looked very happy to see it, and Yerim had wondered quite a few times if she disliked Jiwoo, but that theory had been debunked when she had seen them talking and laughing once.

Yerim was confused, but still proceeded to stick her tongue down Jiwoo’s throat.

  
  


~~~

  
  


Sooyoung’s confession left Yerim feeling as if she was walking on clouds. 

After a nap to sleep off the hangover, of course.

When they had woke up from the nap on her bed, she had placed her hands on Sooyoung’s cheeks and grinned.

“I love you, so much,” she had whispered, “Thank you for texting me that one time.”

That had been answered by a deep kiss.

  
  


~~~

  
  


**when-dy**

YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN’T TELL ANYONE ABOUT THE NUDES GKJFDHSKJGH  
ALSO DON’T STAIN THE CARPET  
OH MY GOD ARE YOU BOTH EVEN TESTED?  
KATY KIM ANSWER ME  
KIM YERIM  
KATYYYYY

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's the end of fucking canada! i hope u enjoyed, and thank u so much for reading this to the end.
> 
> if u don't know what a freezie is, it's one of those popsicles in a plastic tube! it's similar to what we call them where i live, so that's the word i decided to use for them
> 
> and special thanks to my friend, diana, for helping me with canadian stuff!!! she writes fics on here, too, if you'd like to read them!! her account is 5INGME, and she's the one this work is gifted to!
> 
> twitter: @ncityyaus

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! the second chapter won't be a continuation, but more the story from yerim's point of view and scenes from canada, and her friendship with wendy!
> 
> u can find me on twitter if you'd like, my handle is @ncityyaus and i write some aus over there, as i don't give out my main on what i write


End file.
